Functional Strength Training: Isolation vs Integration
Filed under: Strength Training
Walk into a popular exercise facility or gym and you will probably see a room filled with free weights and individual pieces of weight-lifting and strength training machines. These weight-lifting machines are specifically designed to focus on isolating and “working” a single muscle or muscle group. The person exercising will use this equipment by sitting or lying on the machines, sometimes securing themselves with a strap. The use of the strap may act as a safety feature; however, it may also increase the isolation of the muscle being exercised. Weight is added to increase resistance and overload the muscle to build strength. The movement of the exercise is typically in the single, sagittal (front-to-back) plane and requires only one active joint to move the muscle. Help from other muscle groups is discouraged and generally referred to as “cheating.”
The purpose of most free-weight and machine-based weight training is to make the muscle(s) as large as possible. Generally, this is how typical body-builders might workout. To some, this may be ascetically pleasing. In reality, you might be setting yourself up for disaster. This type of a “across the board” exercise workout is poorly designed for 99.9% of the population because no thought was given to specificity of training and integrated movement patterns. You might develop strength exercising as a body-builder, but it will not be the functional strength, the type of strength you are looking to develop. This is alright for body-builders, but not for anyone looking to increase specific sports and occupational performances or just improving the ability to perform activities of daily living.
Think of one activity you do in sports or at work where you are sitting down and performing a task using only one muscle, one active joint, and in one plane of movement. Now think again how you really work or participate in sport’s activities. In reality, you are probably, pulling, pushing, bending, and rotating while at the same time using several muscle groups in several planes of movement. In swimming, you are pulling, pushing, and rotating at the same time, every stroke in all planes of movement while using multiple muscle groups. A cyclist is pulling and pushing on the pedals while rotating slightly and transmitting power from the core or trunk to the upper and lower extremities for several hours. A nurse might be assisting with moving a patient. Depending on the positioning, multiple muscles groups and joints are being use simultaneously in a multi-planar pattern. All these factors need to be considered when designing a sensible exercise program.
Most endurance athletes will shy away from strength training because they equate this with body-building exercises and weight lifting. They fear that the additional size and bulk along with the possible loss of flexibility will slow them down and decrease their performance more relative to the additional strength will benefit they will gain. They are right to think this because this outdated type of training will hurt them more than it will help them. However, current thinking and practices show that core and functional strength training leads to better muscular balance, better posture, a stronger muscular chain, and improves joint stability resulting in fewer injuries and increased performance. These acceptable current trends in training require workouts to be functional in order to achieve optimal sports performance and to improve participation in daily activities. It is important to train the movements as well as the muscles. The human body works as an integrated unit and should be trained that way.
Exercises should be occupational and sports specific and mimic the activity with strength training concentrated on the primary movers. This requires exercises to use multiple muscle groups in a multi-planar fashion working together in an integrated fashion and a sequential pattern. This integrated-based strength training develops the specific “kinetic muscle chain” through its full range of motion making each muscle in the chain stronger resulting in “functional strength”. Through repetition of appropriate functional exercises, the body will adapt and develop neuromuscular memory improving balance, stability, control, strength, and performance while at the same time decreasing the risk of injury.